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Show : 10 TEAMS PUZZLING Sta, Fans Try to Figure Whether p Managers or Players Are More Important. a By Tribune Speom! Sport Service. NE' YORK. June 6. A question that 10 rrplexs fandom even more than "How ';: aged wm Ann?'' is the one, "If it the u- manager or the players that make for 3 Jt :' winning ball team?" 3" Let's take the cay of the Cincinnati '?. ' Reds as one example to show that maybe .a, $ '" H'a the manager. The Reda last year ;:r; .." looked and acted like the. worst apprecn- on tlon outside the graveyard. They looked i even -'orse for the i14 season, because 'v y-i . the Feds came along and grabbed off a : :'jv ralr of their beat pitchers and tied an- :hf- " other Chief Johnson ud in the court?- 3 H", Furthermore, they wre minus the service t"" one Josephus Tinker, who batted .SI 7 ' last year and led the shortstops of the V ' league In field ins. ; Charley Ilerzog, the peppery ex -mem - Lv-" ber of the Giants, appeared at the helm this sason. Everybody felt sorry for --,',7 him. And what happened? Oh. not over- ; ' " 4 lv much: only that Herzog. with even a weaker team than that of last year, be-pan be-pan shoving his gang along at a surpris- Lt " . lng gait risrht at the outset and has been t;a -.' i keeping it up. He's been beatin? the lead- Tl:' ptp, Just as easily as he has been beating -4 the tail-enders. And the beatings his team '1: L'- !s doling out are not ftukep they are L- dean-cut, overwhelming victories in most r cases. eV Naps Case in Point. Then there's Joe Birmingham of the sn XaD?. Harry Davis, as manager of the - Naps, failed miserably during the first part of t'Q 1912 season. Pavis quit the r"""1- job and Birmy took it up. From that time on the team played 50 rer cent bet- cr"-.. Ter baseball, and from the last of August r3. ; until the curtain dropped they -played the best ball In the American league. Yet it in?. was the sama outfit that couldn't win for Davis. ;;1 ". In 1913. under the same Birmy. tne v " Xaps put up a thrilling fight for the pen-, pen-, rant, being in the race until the last two weeks of the season. And now in 1914, ?t with only one of their pitchers gone and 'with their shortstop injured, the Naps are -playing about the worst ball in the L fi league. ? Hughie Jennings led the Tigers to three :e -. pennants in 1907. 190S and 1909- Then the team seemed to crack. iThe Tigers had i- .- the same wonderful leader in 1510, 1911, ': ISll' and 1913 that thev had in their pen-nant-winning days, but they couldn't hit a winning stride. They made some inglor--2::.;; ions finishes in those four years. z-- And nov Jennings is back in this year .-'j. 1914 with n team that does not look very much better than that of last year and 7, he's got a fine chance for the pennant. . Rickey's Big Job. v V": The St. Louis Browns have been a joke Kl ball team for many years. As in the case of Charley Herzog of the Reds, a lot of V: people felt pretty sorry for Branch Rickey L:r-CT-' when he took over the job of handling the outfit. Rickey got under way with a team ".Va th&t looked weaker than the last place i- outfit of 1913, and Rickey's team has 'l proved to be one of the big surprises in l-i the American league. The gang is play ing real baseball. Its playing is not t-p streakv or its wins flukey. The games the -r Browns have won are because they haVe 1 ; shown superior ability. . The Brooklyn TJodgers looked to have a ud kt. . better team than last year. And when .g ir :: . Wilbert Robinson hooked up with them as manager, many figured that the Dodgers .,- y -would get away in the front and stick a around "with the select all the way down -- . the sirnch. Robinson had been with Mc-Graw Mc-Graw for many years. He was McGraw's az-i i understudy, and many figured that he was 3 xbfT almost as much responsible for the suc-n-r V cess of the Giants' successful leadership " hs McGTftW himself. But under Robinson cr tlie Dodgers do not seem to be accom- t plishing a.ny more than they did under C'-H? '-' Dahlen. who never was figured as any Jos-?:- sreat phucks as a manager. rent v Going tack about a dozen years one - finds that the New York Giants used to . try to see how far down they could get -3 1 ' in the race without actually falling through the bottom of the league. And Ti'tii- then came John McGraw, who has kept c:-t, his men in the fight each year, and who. ; -h r,'''' n five separate, distinct occasions, has lilted his men so high that it gave the :rur"a: American league cliampions a chance to r come along and club' them on the head ' e y.'J-'- in the world series combats. |